I Built a Marble Machine that Makes Pixel Art

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Join me as I use the whole plethora of mechatronic tools to build a machine capable of generating 32x32 pixel images. The balls are methodically dumped into the frame with a sliding funnel system. Motorized hoppers control the release of the marbles. Once an image has been formed, the machine automatically dumps all the balls out of the screen and sorts them back into their respective hoppers based on their color.

0:29 - The Concept
1:08 - Color Detection and Sorting
4:00 - Motorized Hopper System
5:38 - Innovating on the Lift Conveyor
8:30 - The Big Build Begins
11:44 - Trouble
12:50 - Wiring/Electronics and First Tests
14:45 - Making Pictures with Marbles

[Engineezy]

Here are some answers to the most common questions here:
- The sag in the middle of the image is interestingly a result of the bowing of the front acrylic plate (never would’ve predicted that). The channels are slightly too deep, which is a dimension I adjusted on the second print of the channel sections. This allows the marbles to stagger a little bit which pushes outward on the front panel. The largest deflection of the panel is right in the centre, which is why only the centre columns of marbles sag, and why its only noticeable once the small fractions of displacement build up over the whole frame. Very interesting indeed. Simple fix is to make the channels slightly less deep, and use a thicker front plate.
- The refresh rate is 0.0008hz or one image for every 15 minutes
- Much of the marbles being in the wrong hoppers is actually a result of the hoppers being too small. When the marbles pile up and I don’t catch it in time, they then pile up in the sorting tube and get dumped randomly in any of the sorting tubes. The fix is simple, just make bigger hoppers. That being said, the only marbles it sometimes mixes up is the mint and light blue, which I will definitely find a way to fix for v2
- My switch feedback system was slightly off in dimension (were talking like a half mm) so I had to mount all the switches with hotglue instead of reprinting the entire piece. This lead to some errors where more than 1 marble would get dropped, particularly with the black and white marbles (those were the first switches I glued in, mustve been slightly off). For v2, I will likely change from a mechanical switch to an ir sensor to solve this, and then use stepper motors on the hoppers for more precision!
- I used Arduino to code this whole machine
- It could probably play bad apple, but Im going to save it for v2 which will work perfectly and hopefully way faster!
- I am aware that I look like Harrison Wells, but if you’re asking me I look way more like a young Jerry Seinfeld
- The marble drop at 0:20 was supposed to happen on “how hard could it be” but they wanted their freedom early and nothing was stopping them
- No it cannot run doom…yet

[SeanHodgins]

That is amazing. One day, historians will look back, confused at society's brief obsession with marble machines.

[RadElNew]

Do NOT underestimate the engineering complexity of marble machines
*Wintergatan Flashbacks*

[lawnmowerdude]

That clock spring funnel was a really good idea.

[joanbennettnyc]

CONGRATS! followed the whole build. I was in charge of building a restaurant where they would have LOVED this, so you have commercial use here. If there's any way you can attach a small, simple photo booth that you lean in and it captures your face and builds it in marbles, you could create a very commercial personal touch to it. Disney, Universal, etc would buy it for showing their characters. CONGRATS!

[dannylumcreative]

Jay this is insane! I did not understand the scale of this from your shorts lolol i am blown away. So many moving parts and systems talking to each other - I bet you must've been in integration hell for a while. Really enjoy your story telling on this - and the animation in the beginning was top notch. This may be my favorite video of yours!

[AllenKnutson]

Once you fix the bowing plexiglass, it's definitely time to do stop-motion animation. You should be able to upload in an arbitrary movie, have each frame approximated with your few colors (shades of gray might be better), draw the frame, take a pic, move on to next frame.

[justinbanks]

15:19 that slow build, then quick clearing with the sound.... Soooo satisfying

[PanicGiraffe]

I think the rendering would be more satisfying to watch if channels were picked at random. And sometimes have a channel fill only partly before it switches to another channel, and then it come back to finish.

Basically less predictability in how the marbles drop will make it more fun to watch.

[MrVolt]

Eat your heart out Ivan Miranda/Wintergataan! There's a new mechanical marble marvel madman. This is an incredible build with 10/10 engineering/suffering. I also loved the Foley work with the intro illustrations.

[ivanmirandawastaken]

DUDE!!! That was sick!!!! Well done Jay!!!

[benrund-scott]

Lost scale at 14:15 for a sec, thought the machine got massive all the sudden

[Nitrinoxus]

I don't know _what_ I expected when I started following along with the short-form looks at the components, but this exceeds _all_ my expectations!

[willcubemakes]

You, Ivan Miranda and Wintergatan... everyone been building big marble machines lately!

[JacksonKintz]

As someone in school right now for mechanical engineering this is probably one of the coolest and most inspiring videos I’ve seen. Thank you for sharing such an awesome project!

[deltatgames]

Those trace-like marble routes look sick! Equally spaced tubes just plain look good. The column selectors are a work of genius, I never would've thought of that in years! Awesome project!

[sissel]

Months of watching your shorts while on the toilet paid off. Good job!

[pocket]

Beautiful work.
Here's a rarely-considered fact (from a guy who has sorted countless marbles): consumer-grade marbles are not held to very tight tolerances!

If marbles were put into this machine straight out of the mail, it's safe to say that probably more than a few errors were caused by size discrepancies. Standard marbles are sold as 9/16", but that number is just their _average_ size. On top of this complication, marbles will also vary with respect to roundness. Eccentricity is a whole 'nother thing to test for; a simple rail-sorting machine can easily screen for size, but such screenings assume a marble is perfectly spherical, and thus multiple screenings (of the same set) are necessary to determine their degree of roundness.

Forget that, though. An occasional error makes the final product a charming work of art. It's almost better that way. More uncertain. More human.

[BAGINAZARD]

16:12 they says that as there is clearly a red ball going up the blue ball track

[xvxscarecrow]

Ive been seeing his development shorts videos. Watching snippets of the different parts hes been making has been interesting. To finally see it all come together was super cool